Wires and Waves
by Jay-La52
Summary: What if Rory stayed in touch with Jess throughout his transformation into the guy we see in Season 6? Starts at 4x21: Rory has enough money for a cab and so doesn't call Dean for a ride home. Jess shows up too early and, while waiting outside her dorm, has a chance to re-think his proposal. Season 5 rewrite.
1. Chapter 1

**Wires and Waves**

**Summary:** 4x21. Rory has enough money for a cab and so doesn't call Dean for a ride home. Jess shows up too early and, while waiting outside her dorm, has a chance to re-think his proposal. Season 5 re-write: What if Rory stayed in touch with Jess throughout his transformation into the guy we see in Season 6?

**A/N:** Hello! So, this idea came into my head the other day and I just had to write the first chapter; since I have one half-finished fic and another still in need of an epilogue, I'll probably leave it up to the response this gets as to whether I continue it in the near future. A couple of notes on the format: I'm planning to stick to a lot of the canon at the beginning, just with added Jess, but about two thirds of the way through it should veer away dramatically. Each chapter will be focussed on a Season 5 episode (and initially the last two of Season 4) with some combined and some skipped over in order to avoid too much filler. If I continue, chapters are probably going to be quite short, as there's a lot of ground to cover and not always that many situations where I can plausibly rig the plot, but this means that updates would probably be more regular. That's all, hope you like it!

**Episode: **Last Week Fights, This Week Tights

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing. If I did, this would be a lot better written.

* * *

**Prologue: Pathetic**

Rory looked down at the almost full table of food in front of her with a sigh. According to the cab company, she still had a good one and a half hour wait ahead of her before a car showed up (_they're probably all stuck in traffic due to the inevitable car crash caused by my charming escorts of the evening_, Rory thought to herself, bitterly), and so she'd decided to take her frustration out on the open tab her so-called date had left in his wake. Not that she ever really objected to being presented with an inordinate amount of food but, as someone who'd been all-too-regularly reminded of their own singleness of late, helping herself to a meal for four on her own table at a crowded pub on date night wasn't the biggest esteem builder.

Ignoring the pitying looks of the wait staff, she started to tuck into her meal, letting the situation settle over her in all its pathetic glory. This catastrophe of an evening had been her second date of the whole year, and it amazed her that it had managed to beat out the first in terms of suck factor – in fact, it would have qualified as the worst of her life had it not been for Kyle's party... No, that was not a memory that she was going to dwell on – not now, not in a bar filled with couples in various degrees of flirtation, and preferably not ever. That memory was to be kept filed away with all of the others in the compartment of her brain it had been allotted back when she had left for Europe with a broken heart and a promise to herself not to cry over it. She'd broken that promise several times since, but since starting at Yale she'd grown better at keeping it (that is, until a certain reappearance around Christmas which had since been shoved into the aforementioned compartment).

So, instead, her mind, now lodged firmly on her love life (a moment of silence for the departed), turned to Dean. Dean had, after all, never left her emotionally clobbered and biting her fist in a hostel bathroom in Rome so that her mother didn't hear her crying. Ever since the events of the last year, and even more so once her life had been uprooted to New Haven, she'd longed for the security that had come from her relationship with Dean to the extent that she'd begun to associate it with being at home – _I guess you could call that love?_ She reflected to herself. Of course, it didn't matter how she felt about that particular ex – every time she saw him with Lindsay she was reminded of the proverbial neon sign hanging over his head: 'unattainable'. Still, she'd take the dull ache of thinking about her first love over the jagged pang that came from prodding the mental compartment into which she'd shoved her second.

With another sigh, she checked her watch: an hour left until her cab. This was the longest night of her life.

* * *

His blood pumping with the momentum of the decision he'd made back when he'd jumped into his car in Stars Hollow, Jess parked at record speed in a faculty only spot, jumped out of the car and, without locking it, started to seek his destination. The hand clenched around the address that he'd torn from Luke's fridge was shaking slightly as he looked around at each intimidating-looking building, searching for the name that matched the scribbled down one currently burning a hole in his hand. He finally found a match; he walked up to the building, squaring himself before the door, took a deep breath and pushed it open. Upon being confronted with a deserted, dark corridor, he unclenched his fist (his knuckles cracked at the sudden release of tension) and consulted the address again (which was pretty damn pointless, considering his eyes had combed that stupid scrap of paper about two hundred times before finally gathering the nerve to drive here). A few moments later he was standing outside her door. Another deep breath. He knocked.

And was greeted by complete silence – no shuffling from behind the door, no nothing. The whole building was dead. Another knock. Nothing.

Fuck. He turned around and his back made contact with the door before sliding down as he slowly sunk into a sitting position, still leaning against the decidedly closed door. Of course she wasn't here. Just because he hadn't seen her around town while he was there didn't mean she hadn't already come home – hell, she'd probably heard that he was in town and gone into hiding, such was her hatred of him. As he sat there, all of the plans he'd made on the frenzied drive up began to seem more and more ridiculous. After a week of Luke's self-help books (and a couple of his own, purchased out of town during one of the most embarrassing trips to Barnes and Noble of his life), his head had been filled with reconciliation and reciprocation, and all the other polysyllabic words beginning with 'r' that the author so loved to bandy around, and, with all this in mind, he'd got in his car and driven straight to Yale to ask the girl he loved to run away with him. What better way was there to show that he was committed, that he was ready, he'd reasoned. And all of those factors that had driven them apart the first time – her mother, her ex-boyfriend, and that psych experiment of a town – wouldn't even come into it.

But, sitting alone in an abandoned building, all of his frantic logic was wearing away by the second. How was he supposed to claim to have changed when all he was offering was to remove her from all the reasons that he _had_ to change? The people that she loved, people that _hadn't_ lied to her, refused to talk to her and bailed on her twice. How could he possibly ask her to leave that – as well as the future she'd always dreamed of, the one she deserved – behind in order to be with someone who she probably never wanted to see again?

The longer he sat there, the clearer it became to him that he'd wilfully misinterpreted everything he'd read in the past week in order to provide a motive for this selfish suicide mission. Feeling perhaps the most pathetic he'd ever felt in his life, he got back up on his feet and headed towards the door of the building.

Only for it to swing open as Rory walked in, her head hanging low after her debacle of an evening.

Jess stopped in his tracks, remaining glued to the spot in a stunned stupor as Rory approached. It wasn't until she'd practically walked into him that she became aware of the fact that she wasn't alone. Her head immediately snapped up and Jess saw shock register on her face, before quickly turning to anger.

"What are you doing here?" she asked in the most hostile tone she could muster, her whole body tensing up.

"I..." Jess started, not knowing how the hell to begin to explain the delusional thought process that had led him there that evening. "I honestly don't know."

"You don't know?" Rory repeated, incredulously. "You decided to take a huge and unnecessary detour on the way back to New York in order to what – check out the Yale architecture?"

"You knew I was in Stars Hollow?" he asked, in spite of himself. His question was met with a glare and a stony silence. "Look, I- I'm just gonna go."

And with that, he side stepped round her and headed towards the door. Still completely thrown by the whole situation, Rory turned around to watch him go. She didn't know what the hell caused her next words – perhaps the sudden panic she now felt whenever she saw his retreating back, or maybe the fact that she _had _been thinking about him that night, despite her every effort – but she suddenly heard herself shouting out, "Jess, wait!"

She watched as he stopped and slowly turning around, looking at her with a mixture of confusion and the tiniest bit of hope. Tentatively, she took a few steps forward, until they were within about five feet of each other (_first of all, we should try to get within, say, a foot of each other_- she quickly shoved that memory back into the mental box). The next words out of her mouth were as unexpected as the last: "Do you have a cell?"

He stared at her blankly for a moment. "What?"

"A phone," she clarified, staring resolutely a patch of floor about two feet to his left. "Do you have one?"

His wits slowly returning to him, he replied, "Uh, yeah – I kind of have to, for work."

Her curiosity immediately peaked upon hearing mention of his work, but she quashed it, reminding herself of the towering resentment she still felt towards him. In such a small voice that he barely heard her, she asked, "Can I- can I have the number?"

Thinking he must have misheard her, he repeated, "What?"

"Look – I can't keep doing this, okay? Yes, I'm pissed at you, but I can't keep going through the motions of you coming back, me being mad at you, and you disappearing again, it's messing with my head," she let out, her gaze rising back up to meet his, defiantly. "You're Luke's nephew, so I figure you're always going to be in my life one way or another, and I think we both need to find a way to deal with that. So, I figure, maybe we can try talking, from the safe distance of a state away. All I know is it feels like my life would be a lot easier if we could figure out a way to be civil." _Also, I miss you_, she added, silently. When he continued to look at her in surprise, she threw her hands up in air in exasperation, "Fine then, looks like we'll have to resort to Plan B of just never seeing each other again – works for me." She turned back and headed towards her door, fishing around in her bag for her keys. This task turned out to be easier said than done and after a moment of probing her bag for the elusive objects, she realised she still hadn't heard the door shut behind him. She turned back to see him still there, scribbling something on a square of paper he'd pulled from his pocket, leaning it against the wall in order to write.

When he'd finished, he turned back to her, took a few steps towards her and stretched out his arm. Knowing that words were pretty dangerous things right then, all he said was, "Here," as he held out his cell number.

Being very careful not to brush his hand, she grabbed it from him, before meeting his gaze briefly – he noticed it was the first time she'd looked at him with anything other than bitterness since the year before. Softly, she said a simple, "Thanks."

Backing away again, not wanting to ruin the nicest moment they'd had in months, he said the only thing he could think to say: "Bye, Rory." With that, he turned away for a second time and left.

Rory watched the door swing shut behind him, her head swarming with different emotions, and muttered, "Bye, Jess." After a moment, her gaze turned to the scrap of paper lying in the palm of her hand. Upon seeing that his canvas of choice was a _Barnes and Noble_ receipt, her curiosity got the better of her and she sought the answer to the question that had probably been uttered the most in their relationship: What had he been reading?

Out of everything that had happened that night, looking back she had to say the most surprising thing was turning over that receipt and seeing a list of self-help book titles.

* * *

**A/N: **Thanks for reading, let me know if you want me to continue!


	2. Chapter 2

**Wires and Waves**

**Summary:** 4x21. Rory has enough money for a cab and so doesn't call Dean for a ride home. Jess shows up too early and, while waiting outside her dorm, has a chance to re-think his proposal. Season 5 re-write: What if Rory stayed in touch with Jess throughout his transformation into the guy we see in Season 6?

**A/N:** Hello! Thanks for all the great feedback on the prologue! I know I said that it'd be a long while until I updated this, but I just kept coming up with ideas about where I wanted to take it, so I decided to continue it a bit sooner than planned. Hope you like!

Also, a quick apology to continuity-pedants: the timing here is not always going to be completely true to the show, for the sake of the plot. Sorry!

**Episode:** Raincoats and Recipes

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing. If I did, this would be a lot better written.

* * *

**Chapter One: Awkward**

It had been almost a week since the brief encounter at her dorm, and that scrawled phone number had since made the rounds from pocket to pocket of different garments from Rory's wardrobe. There was no concrete reason as to why she always carried it around with her – just the fact that mixed into her uncertainty as to whether she'd use it she felt an inexplicable paranoia that she'd misplace it. In fact several times a day she found herself reaching into her pocket to check for the familiar wisp of paper; yet, when she found it – and she always did – instead of feeling reassured at its presence, she felt an uncomfortable squirm in her stomach. She tried to analyse exactly what it was that had come over her that evening and had come up with a number of contributing factors: the built up loneliness of that year, the disastrous date, the continued mixture of nostalgia and loss that thoughts of her first love's marriage triggered and, of course, the Jess Factor, that imperceptible change of atmosphere he brought with him wherever he went which always succeeded in making her act rashly. But whatever the determining motivator was, the result was the live grenade now sitting in her pocket.

And so she remained in limbo, keeping the number with her at all times without daring to use it. The main thing that bothered her was there shouldn't really be any indecision on her part – after all, the con column was overflowing with convincing arguments: their train wreck of a relationship, the fact that she'd succeeded in moving on and she wasn't about to allow herself to be dragged back, and also the secret she'd be obliged to keep from her mother if she were to get back into contact with him... And what was in the pro column? Sure, they'd been friends at one point, but it was always a pre-cursor to something more. But there was something in her that made her fist clench around that piece of paper whenever she tried to convince herself to throw the damn thing away.

One evening, a few days before the Dragonfly test run, something changed. She'd been rummaging around in the hall closet, searching for a long buried CD she'd suddenly gotten a hankering for; she'd tugged a blanket whose top edge, unbeknownst to her, had managed to get tucked under a box on the upper shelf of the closet. As the blanket was pulled off, the box came down with it, dumping the entirety of its contents onto the head of the poor, unsuspecting Gilmore. And so, before she'd even managed to process this chain of events, Rory found herself surrounded by the collection of items she'd hastily shoved into her Jess box the year before.

She didn't know why, but something snapped in her head upon seeing this physical manifestation of all the compartmentalising she'd done over that year collapse around here. She hastily gathered up the assorted books, CDs, ticket stubs, and other Jess-related paraphernalia, trying not to let her gaze linger on any one thing but being unable to escape the slight pang that came when her hands ran over her dress from Sookie's wedding as she piled it on top. Shoving the box firmly back into place, she grabbed the phone, walked into her room, shut the door behind her and sat down on her bed.

She pulled out the number (which was pretty pointless considering her eyes had scoured the paper scrap so often that she could recite the digits in Latin if need be), took a deep breath and then dialled.

A state away, Jess (who'd been treating his phone like an unexploded bomb ever since he'd driven away from her that night) froze mid-sentence in what he was reading, wondering if this was what a heart attack felt like. A second later, all such considerations were dropped as he lunged across his mattress (in a move that made him thank God that his roommates weren't home) and grabbed the ringing object, not bothering to check the number before flipping it open. "Hello?"

Rory's breath caught in her throat slightly at the sound of his voice, and she cursed herself for being perennially thrown off guard by him. Recovering, she said a quiet, "Hi."

"Hi," he parroted back, and Rory was relieved to hear that he sounded as nervous as she felt.

Fighting the urge to reply with _You said that already_ (she wasn't very willing to reveal quite how well she remembered their every encounter), she reminded herself of the speech she'd been rehearsing in her head. "Look, I just wanna preface this by saying I haven't forgotten anything. I'm still mad about how things went down last year, and I don't think that's going to change any time soon. That said, I really didn't call you to lecture you about that, in fact I'd rather not talk about the past at all, I just..." she paused, struggling to sum up the reasons why she _had_ made the call and latching onto as honest a justification as she could find, "I just want to be able to talk to you again."

"Okay," Jess replied, simply, knowing that he'd have to tread carefully given the extremely tenuous state of their relationship.

Equally relieved at him being understanding as she was frustrated with his old monosyllabic ways, Rory hesitated as she struggled for what to say next to counter the awkwardness of the situation; God, she missed the days when their every shared silence was a comfortable one. In desperation, she grasped at one of the loose ends she remembered from their last conversation, "So, um, you mentioned you had a job the other night – have you been welcomed back into the loving arms of Walmart?"

His will for this...whatever it was...to work overpowering his aversion to small talk, Jess replied, "Nah, it's just a messenger job, I think my forklift days are behind me."

Rory mock-gasped, "You mean you've turned your back on the extension of yourself?"

Jess groaned, "So Luke shared that gem of an Employee of the Month speech with you?"

"Oh, I demanded the full play-by-play. I was just disappointed I couldn't be there myself, I was stuck in stupid meetings for, um...prom," she stuttered to a stop as she realised she'd managed to step on one of the many landmines of the past strewn throughout the conversation.

Trying to escape the ever-growing awkward pause, Jess asked, "Did you, uh, end up getting a part-time job at Yale?"

Relieved, Rory replied, "Oh yes, you're talking to a certified cafeteria card-swiper."

"Wow, you finally found a job to match your academic prowess."

"I think it would've have been a match made in heaven had it lasted longer than a day."

"Well, all the best affairs are cut short by tragedy," Jess replied, before silently cursing the awkward phrasing.

Quickly recovering, Rory responded, "Except, in this case, the tragedy was me constantly taking phone calls during peak times."

"Tsk, what would Christiane Amanpour say?"

"Did you seriously just 'tsk' me, forklift-abandoner?"

"In hindsight, I retract the 'tsk' in exchange for something that makes me sound less like a seventy-year-old British nanny."

"Too late, Mrs Doubtfire."

Jess sighed, "Wasn't it bad enough that you forced me to watch that film without then using it to mock me?"

"Hey, anything that has Robin Williams in is worth watching." Beat. "Am I to take your silence as a sceptical one?"

"You're to take it as one that recognises the futility of getting into an argument with you about the merits of Robin Williams."

Rory considered this, before shrugging, "I'll allow it."

"Thank you, your Honor."

Another brief silence descended. Not wanting to allow it to derail the comfortable pattern they'd just started to settle into, Rory blurted it, "By the way, guess who my roommate is."

"Simon Pegg."

Rory paused, "Why on earth would you guess Simon Pegg?"

"To discourage people from asking me to guess things that I have no hope of getting right."

"You can be such a grumpy old man," Rory complained, before elaborating. "No, unfortunately Mr Pegg has not decided to pursue further education at Yale. Instead, the one person in all of Yale that the Gods have decided I need to spend the next four years cohabitating with is Paris Gellar."

"Wow, those Gods have a pretty interesting sense of humor."

"Well, I have reason to believe that they were nudged by a few intimidating phone calls from the Gellar household."

"Understandable – I'd say she ranks a two on the scariest citizens of Connecticut scale."

"So long as she's never informed of this – Paris does not respond well to being a runner up."

"I'm sorry, but no one can be ranked above Mrs Kim."

"True, that lady is pretty terrifying."

"Try having her advance towards you yielding a cricket bat, I'm pretty sure that's the closest I've ever come to death."

"Ooh, mine would be when an embittered ballerina wrote 'Die Jerk' on my door. And she didn't even use a comma – if you're going to threaten someone's life you should at least grammaticise."

"Okay: that you're going to have to elaborate on."

Rory grinned, preparing to tell the story before her eyes suddenly landed on the clock, "I think I'm gonna have to save that one until next time – I'm supposed to meet Mom at Luke's like ten minutes ago."

"You're seriously gonna leave me hanging on 'embittered ballerina'?" Jess asked, mock-annoyed, while secretly rejoicing that there would _be_ a next time.

"What can I say? I'm a cruel woman."

There was a slight pause, before Jess asked, "Uh, Rory?"

"Yeah?"

"Is this a two-way thing? I mean, can I call you?"

Rory paused a moment, before responding genuinely, "Yeah, I'd like that."

"Okay."

"Okay," she echoed. "Bye Jess."

"Bye Rory."

* * *

Rory cursed the extent of her and her Mom's CD collection as she rummaged around to find a particular album. It was the night of her Mom's test run at the Inn and she'd been sent home to grab some music. Eventually she was victorious – she fished out the CD in question, added it to the pile and headed to the back door, ready to rejoin the festivities. Only to be confronted with Dean.

"Hey," he said, smiling somewhat apologetically for his abrupt appearance.

Rory smiled back, feeling the comforting warm familiarity that always swept over her around Dean. "How'd you know I was here?" She asked, curious.

"Your Mom said she sent you on an errand."

"Ah, you went right to the source."

Dean chuckled, before gesturing to the stack of CDs in her hand, "Can I...?"

"Sure," Rory replied, handing them to him with a grateful smile. She started to head back to her bedroom to grab the rest, along with the cell phone she'd left on her night desk. He followed. "I'm just trying to find some CDs for the Dragonfly," she explained.

"I hear Taylor's a big hip hop fan."

"Oh, he hops with the hippest of them," she quipped, as they entered her room.

"Your room looks the same," Dean remarked, looking around.

"Yeah, I tried the whole French Revival thing, but it didn't really work for me."

There was a brief pause, which he broke, "So, um, is it weird being back home after being away for a while?"

"No, it feels completely normal."

"So..." he said, suddenly looking slightly uncomfortable. "Look, I came here to talk to you about something."

"Yeah, I'd kinda assumed you didn't come to admire the back door," Rory joked. "Shoot."

"I don't know if I'm just going crazy, but lately, whenever I've seen you- there's been something between us, you know? And I'm pretty sure you feel it too, and I just can't ignore it any more, Rory, I-"

"Dean?" Rory interrupted.

"Yeah?"

"Lindsay."

Dean shook his head, frustrated, "It's not working with Lindsay. I can't make it work. I've tried."

"Are you sure?" Rory asked, trying not to get her hopes up. "Because I've heard that the first two years of marriage are the hardest."

"We're not happy. She's not happy and I can't make her happy."

"I can't imagine that," Rory said, with a smile.

"It was a mistake, and I know that now. From the very beginning, it wasn't-"

"Wasn't what?"

"It wasn't..."

"Maybe you could, um, go see a counsellor, or go away together," Rory suggested, feebly.

"No, it's just- it's over. We both feel it. I know we both feel it."

"You and Lindsay?"

"Yeah, me and Lindsay."

"You both feel it's over?" Rory said, noticing they'd inched slightly closer together over the course of the conversation.

"I tried. We tried."

"Well, if it's over, I'm sorry."

"You are?" he said, looking slightly disappointed.

"I'm sorry you're not happy," she clarified.

"I'll be happy again, things happen for a reason, right?" he replied, moving closer still.

"Right," She replied, feeling the happiness bubble up in her to quash the doubt as she mirrored his actions. This was it. This was what had been missing all year – everything was slipping back into how it was meant to be. She and Dean were right, they were good together, they were what she had needed this year; her whole life was all about to fall back into place, no more doubt, or loneliness, or that numbness that had been gnawing at her since the previous summer. Flooded with relief, she breathed, "I can't believe this is- that we're..."

He whispered back, "I can," and their lips met.

And that was when her phone began to ring.

* * *

**A/N: Sorry for all the lines from the show, and the gratuitous Dean – there'll be far less in future, I promise! Apologies also if I was a bit under-descriptive in the second half, that's really not a scene I like to linger on... Please review, it really reminds me to keep writing!**

**Thanks for reading,**

**Julia**


	3. Chapter 3

**Wires and Waves**

**Summary:** 4x21. Rory has enough money for a cab and so doesn't call Dean for a ride home. Jess shows up too early and, while waiting outside her dorm, has a chance to re-think his proposal. Season 5 re-write: What if Rory stayed in touch with Jess throughout his transformation into the guy we see in Season 6?

A quick apology to continuity-pedants: the timing here is not always going to be completely true to the show, for the sake of the plot. Sorry!

**Episode:** Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing. If I did, this would be a lot better written.

* * *

**Chapter 2:**** Avoidance**

Rory froze. When she later came to think back on that night (which, believe me, she did many a time) she could have sworn that before looking at the phone – in fact, from the second it started to ring – she had known exactly who was calling.

The moment her lips lost contact with Dean's and the trance that had come over her was broken, a rapid swell of guilt and shame swept over her. It was this sudden burst of feeling that left her paralysed long enough for Dean to look over and see the caller ID on her phone. His expression was enough to confirm her suspicions as to the origin of the call. He picked up the phone to show her Jess' name flashing across the screen briefly, before the ringing finally stopped and the pair was enveloped in tense silence.

"Rory," he finally started, and his tone of voice along with the muscle twitching furiously in his jaw made her feel as though she was outside a bid-a-basket festival, in her kitchen surrounded by a care package from Luke's and in the middle of a dance marathon all at once, "why is Jess calling you?"

"I-" Rory started, her Yale-educated mind suddenly drawing a complete blank.

"Are you two...?" he trailed off, but his disgusted expression left her able to fill in the blanks.

"No!" she replied, glad to have a definitive answer for something. "Of course we're not back together; you know that could never happen."

"Then what is he doing calling you? And why is his number saved on your phone? I thought you hated the guy now and suddenly you're back to being best pals?"

"I do!" she lied instinctively – although anger still made up a large portion of her confused knot of feelings towards Jess, she couldn't say hatred had ever truly factored into it. "And we're not! We're just...talking."

"Oh, that's funny, because I seem to remember the last time you two were 'just talking' and it didn't work out too great for me," he spat out, bitterly.

"This is completely different – he lives in New York, for one thing. And for another, I have no interest in being his friend, I just want to not feel awful every time he comes to town!" she asserted, her stomach squirming slightly at another liberal use of the truth.

"Well, if you can't even be in the same town as the guy it sounds to me as though he still has a pretty strong effect on you."

She paused, not knowing what to say back. "Dean, I thought that you and me...that we were..."

"Yeah," he sighed, "me too. But if it's just going to be a repeat of two years ago then what's the point, Rory?"

A stray tear rolled down her cheek. "What can I say to convince you that it'd never be like that?"

Dean hesitated, and then replied, "Delete the number."

"I can't," Rory replied instantly, without really understanding why she felt so resolute in this decision but quickly grasping onto a justification, "because this is never going to work if you can't trust me."

Dean just stared at her for a moment, before saying, "I guess this isn't going to work then," and turning to leave.

Suddenly terrified of losing the security she thought was finally within her grasp, she cried out in desperation, "Dean, I- I love you!"

Dean paused, but didn't turn around. After a moment, he said, "So, we have a fight about Jess and you try to fix it by stuttering that out? Seems exactly the same as two years ago to me," and left.

Rory slumped back onto her bed, gazing at the empty doorway in shock as she tried to process everything that had just happened. Unless she was completely mistaken about where things had been headed a moment ago, she had just almost slept with Dean. Safe, dependable, married Dean. As thoughts of Lindsay and the ensuing guilt began to flood her mind, she had trouble deciding whether that phone call had been her salvation or her undoing. She feebly tried to think of the justifications that had flittered through her mind during their earlier conversation – they were soon to be separated, Lindsay wasn't right for him, he loved _her_ – but each seemed more flimsy than the last. Far too many women got strung along by married men on the promise that they'd leave their wives, a promise usually whispered soothingly post-coitus as the glow began to fade and the doubts began to creep up. And as for Lindsay not being right for him, who the hell was she to decide? Lindsay had never fallen for someone else while with Dean, had never strung him along as she had. And besides, this whole year she'd been judging her from a few glimpsed arguments and the warped perspective of the bitter ex-girlfriend.

As she considered the last of her justifications, she couldn't help but go back to her own desperate declaration of love of a moment ago. _Did _she love him? The eternal question: the one that had haunted her as she stared at him blankly on their first anniversary, during the whole of her trip to Washington, and now again that night. She definitely trusted him, and felt safe and comfortable around him. She also genuinely enjoyed his company, and she recognised so many aspects of his personality that she loved: his kindness, loyalty and reliability ranking highest among them. _Yes_, she thought to herself, _I do love him. Or at least I did_. This was the conclusion she'd always reached, and then it always led on to a much more unsettling question: _But have I ever been _in_ love with him?_ And the answer, as ever, came back a resounding 'no'. Back in their first year together, she'd sort of assumed that she was in love with him, that the excitement that mostly came with being in her first ever relationship was entirely down to him. But then she'd felt what being in love really was – she'd met someone who surprised, excited and stimulated her all at once. And since then, she'd known that she'd never really been in love with Dean.

Thinking about it now, she wondered whether she even really _did_ love him anymore. After the sudden pain of being so abruptly and inconclusively dumped the year before, she'd almost immediately craved the security of the boy who'd never have done that to her. And then it was time to move to Yale, and with that came yet more longing for the comfortable and familiar – and that wasn't love.

This revelation helped soothe Rory's nerves somewhat, though she still felt a great sense of loss for the security that, she came to realise now, had never really been attainable. Her mind began to drift away from Dean altogether and quickly latched onto the person whose phone call had caused this sudden epiphany. There was never any doubt that she'd been in love with Jess; she'd fallen for him quickly and hard in a way that she'd never done before and, in the back of her mind, she knew that all her strong reactions to his comings and goings this year meant that traces of those feelings still remained. No, her problem with _him_ had been exactly the opposite: she'd never loved him. How could she? During the whole of their relationship she'd never gotten the hang of trusting him, and trust was so connected with love in Rory's heart that she'd never gotten to that stage with him. So, while she'd felt all the passion and excitement of being in love, she'd never felt the comfort and familiarity that would have made their relationship possible in the long term.

Her thoughts were quickly interrupted by the sound of the front door opening, and her mother's voice soon rang through the house. She quickly brushed away her lone tear and grabbed the discarded stack of CDs, only barely taking in all the things her mother was saying to her from afar: something about big news, a camera, and a naked Kirk? She can't have heard _that_ right.

Shoving on a happy face, she went out to greet her mother. As she started to leave the room, her phone started to ring once again. She paused, staring at it, before deciding that she could only deal with so much confusion in one night and shutting her door on her room, leaving the offending object ringing away to no one on her bedroom desk.

* * *

A day later, Rory was packing for Europe.

Okay, so this was definitely not how she'd expected her summer to go, and when her Grandmother had made the offer earlier that day, her first instinct had been to say no. But then, she'd begun to think of what her summer would otherwise entail: awkward run-ins with Dean, yet more Jess-related confusion, and, although she couldn't be more happy for Lorelai after she'd told her about what had happened with Luke, she felt a slight gnawing sensation in her stomach at being around for all the lovey-doveyness while her own romantic life was in such extreme turmoil. And so, to her mom's great surprise, she'd said yes. After a long conversation with Lorelai about how she couldn't possibly pass up another chance to go to Europe, and that Emily probably needed company after what had happened with Richard, and how of course her decision had nothing to do with her, and how she'd call her every day, Lorelai had doubtfully accepted her decision and had gone back to work at the inn, leaving Rory alone at the house.

As she scanned her room for things to pack, her gaze landed on her cell phone. She picked it up, looking at the two missed calls on the screen. Her thumb hesitated over the 'call back' button for a moment before pushing it.

She held the phone to her ear with her shoulder so that she could keep packing as it rang. After a few seconds, she heard the click of him picking up and a sleepy-sounding, "Hello?"

"Hi," she replied, before adding, "were you still sleeping? It's like eleven o'clock."

"My roommate decided to have a screaming match with his girlfriend for half the night and there aren't exactly many places to escape from noise what with the luxury one-room apartment set up we've got going on here."

"At least you don't have to overhear Paris' conversations with her boyfriend-slash-professor."

"She's dating her professor?"

"Well, my professor, technically, but believe me, that distinction only makes things worse."

"I'm gonna need to cut off this line of conversation here, I really can't listen to the tawdry affairs of Paris Gellar before breakfast."

"Sorry," Rory replied with a grin. After a slight pause she said, "And, um, sorry I didn't pick up last night: I was at Mom's inn for the opening night and I left my phone at home."

"Oh yeah? How was that?"

"Picture the Bracebridge Dinner with fewer horse rides and one hundred percent more Kirk nudity."

"Okay, that's going to need an explanation."

"What happened to the pre-breakfast censorship of disturbing topics?"

"Curiosity wins out over self-preservation in this case."

"Nuh-uh, I'm not going to be responsible for relaying that level of pre-meal disturbingness, you're just going to have to wait."

"Tease," he joked.

"You've got to be used to it by now," she shot back, before realising with alarm that this conversation was bordering uncomfortably close to flirtation and deciding to dial it back. "So, guess what happened to me this morning."

"I'm pretty sure I've made my feelings pretty clear on the whole guessing thing."

"Fine," she said with a roll of the eyes, "I agreed to go to Europe for the summer with Grandma."

"Huh," he replied, surprised, "I bet Lorelai's just thrilled about that."

"I'm pretty sure she's going to be otherwise occupied this summer anyway: her and Luke kissed last night."

"Another visual I could do without, I must say."

"Aw, come on, it's sweet! And hardly unexpected."

"Oh yeah, it's just adorable, potential-cousin-in-law."

Rory paused, the ick-factor suddenly occurring to her, "Okay, now it's my turn to veto the subject."

"I've got to get ready for work now anyway."

Rory couldn't help feeling slightly disappointed that the first completely comfortable conversation she'd had with him in a year was being cut off so soon, but quickly recovered, replying with a neutral tone. "Bye, Jess."

"Bye, Rory."

* * *

**A/N: Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it! Please review – it's what keeps me writing **


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